What it was like to receive a series of Sexological Bodywork sessions

One of the great things having been through the Sexological Bodywork training and setting up my own (small) practice in Los Angeles, is I get to be a resource for folks who are going through the training themselves. I have a pretty good sense of people who work in the field. That, along with the resource of the ACSB practitioner directory, I can link people up if they don’t live near me, or I have someone in mind who I trained under, or with in some capacity, so I can refer out.

With this in mind, I’ve gotten to experience working with new bodyworkers and give them feedback about their approaches based on things I learned in my training, things that work well for me as a practitioner, stylistic notes, in addition to debriefing as a client.

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I have a friend who was a classmate of mine in my doctoral program who was taking the San Francisco SexBod training back in the Fall of 2014-Winter 2015. A large piece of the work is doing several sessions, but ultimately, this isn’t a practice where we see a client forever.

We arranged to work together for several sessions. (“Several” for us turned out to be four due to scheduling and he had to gain credits by working with other clients and in other ways, too.) In general, the structure of the sessions I had with my colleague is the same as how I work with clients, though it was a slightly fast-tracked and condensed. We would do a check-in before any hands-on work. See where I was that day, what my intentions were, and what I wanted to work on. Then I actively received the bodywork, keeping in mind conscious breath, movement, sound, and touch. Afterward, there would be a debrief, in which I could talk about how it was for me, what worked, what I would have liked better, things to ponder for myself, and possibly things to work on in future sessions.

I don’t need to go into specifics for each individual session. But I will talk about a few aspects in detail.

In one of our sessions I wanted to do some anal work. (You read that right!) I don’t tend to do a lot of anal exploration these days for a variety of reasons and I knew that in this safe space and the container created by sexological bodywork, I could try venturing back into it and see how it went. And so, in one particular session that was the intention, to do some anal exploration along with conscious breath, movement, touch, and sound.

My colleague was great. We had pretty good communication through the session. I was breathing a whole bunch, maybe not making much sound, but that’s an area I need to work on. At a certain point during the anal portion, I was done. And I communicated that to him and he respectfully, no questions asked, slowly backed off. My boundaries were respected and I didn’t need to stop for anything in that realm, but my butt had had enough.

Afterward, I was able to process with him. I gave him props for not pushing me farther than I wanted to go, and for being gentle with the exit. He encouraged me to be more vocal when I could in my solo-pleasuring and in upcoming sessions.

We worked together a couple more times after this. I was able to breathe more and be more vocal in those sessions, so that was wonderful practice.

What’s the take-away?

If you’re considering working with a sexological bodyworker: That’s awesome! Just know that results are best seen over time and you have to do some work on your own. Sessions can be profound sometimes. You might have breakthroughs, cry, laugh, yell, etc., but the session is short; anywhere from one to 2 hours depending on the practitioner. If we don’t continue to breathe, and move, and explore on our own, the revelations and insights we gain in session might not stick.

This process is dual-pronged: Bodyworkers don’t (generally) want to see a client indefinitely. This isn’t like talk-therapy in that sense. At the same time, we often recommend a series of three to five sessions minimum so you can see how the changes start to take place. And after your set amount of sessions (8, 10, 12 – whatever it ends up being), there might be some maintenance. This will vary a little bit from case to case and bodywork to bodyworker. Find someone who meshes with you.

I invite you to contact me if you’d like to work together if you’re local to the Los Angeles area, or if you need a reference elsewhere.

I am a board member and volunteer educator with Center for Positive Sexuality, a 501c3 nonprofit whose mission is to promote recognition and acceptance of sexual and gender diversity to individuals, groups, and communities through education and research. We do outreach educational panels and research sexuality, kink, and gender, and we are 100% volunteer-run. Your donation is tax deductible!